


The Ghost in the Shell

by miranda_wave (miranda_askher)



Series: Macrocosm/Microcosm [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Failures of logic, Gen, Pink Phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-16
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 11:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miranda_askher/pseuds/miranda_wave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The phone no longer rings, but that doesn't mean all the questions are answered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost in the Shell

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: My words. Not my characters.

The pink phone no longer rings. It has stopped ringing forever, and John is glad, really glad. But it still lives on the arm of Sherlock’s chair, waiting expectantly, as if Moriarty will text them from his drawer in the morgue any day now. He thinks it ought to be morbid, keeping it there like that, but every time he sees it, it fills him with a little thrill of safety.

He wonders if Sherlock can see it that way, or if safety, even after so much effort, is just too mundane. Or if it is something else, some kind of unanswered question.

He wonders until the day he comes home to find Sherlock bent over the kitchen table, nose-to-lens with a giant lighted magnifier, the phone disassembled into a thousand tiny parts laid out in meticulous order.

John says nothing. He simply cannot think of the right thing, or anything, so he stands there, watching Sherlock’s hands and eyes examine, separate, disconnect, break down this device that tortured them for months until it cannot be broken down any further. He waits.

Without looking up, Sherlock commands, “Give me your hand, John.”

As usual, he doesn’t hesitate. Sherlock picks up a tiny object with tweezers and drops it into his palm.

“This is the receiving antenna. How we got his texts, his calls.”

Another object.

“That’s the GPS. He used that to track the phone--that’s how he always knew where we were, what we had discovered, what we were doing.”

And finally a third, larger piece, which John recognizes.

“That’s the flash drive. All his texts and pictures are stored in there.”

He has told John nothing that he doesn’t already know, and he has done it in words a five-year-old could understand. Something isn’t quite right here. John waits, and Sherlock finally looks up. Looks at him.

Oh.

John pulls out the other chair, sits down slowly, pushes the magnifier out of the way, all without ever taking his eyes off Sherlock. Sherlock, who hides things rather well but who can’t quite keep the stricken look out of the lift of his eyebrows and the tension around his mouth right now. He sets the three pieces of the phone on table and ignores them.

“You already know everything. His aims, his methods, his tricks. You know how he did it all. If there’s anything you don’t know, you can find it out. But there are some things, Sherlock, that logic can’t explain. I, for one, don’t want to know why he fixated on you. But I think...I think you’re worried about how he got to you, really _got_ to you. And what it means.

“But what it means is this: you’re human and he’s much, much less. Maybe you think that makes you weaker, but I don’t: clearly you’re alive and he’s dead. And as far as I’m concerned, everything’s just a bit more right in the world.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, but John cuts him off. “I said right, not easy. It doesn’t all have to be easy. But I do have one simple question for you.” He picks up the antenna (Moriarty’s mouth), the GPS (Moriarty’s eyes), and finally the flash drive (Moriarty’s horrific twisted mind). “Where can we build a fire?”


End file.
